Tag: wii

Nold joined the forums last year and started off by posting a beautiful, tiny portable GameCube he’d made. From there, he tackled the N64 and built a sweet N64 portable. After that, he moved onto the Dreamcast and put more effort into trimming and portablizing the Dreamcast than anyone before him. What was left for Nold? The Nintendo Wii of course, and Nold wasn’t willing to stick with the basics, no sir! Nold decided that he wanted to start out by seeing how far he could trim the Wii motherboard down. Now, this is something we see a lot. Somebody with no electronics experience will come along, try to perform some crazy untested trim, fail, become discouraged, and leave. It’s a perfect formula with a single exception: Nold. Nold paced himself and started with the OMGWTF trim, hopped on a NAND bend, then reloacted the entire NAND without a breakout board, and then decided to go all out with the OMEGA trim: a trim only done by ShockSlayer himself. Nold pulled it off though, and the thread detailing his trim progress is a testament to his soldering abilities and a really awesome thread to look through. From there, it was time to put one of his various trims into a portable. Welcome to the WooDii, 3rd place portable in the 2018 contest.

It’s a gorgeous device. The two tones of earthy wood and black create a really stunning exterior.

The WooDii also has what is probably the sexiest fan vent ever.

Nold is also extremely talented when it comes to internal wiring. Keeping everything neat is a difficult task, and the anticipation of having a finished portable to play on never helps. Nold was able to stay patient and give his portable stunning internals, a common feature of all his portables.

A close up of that sweet sweet controller wiring. Note the arches used to run wires through. Nold is a man with a plan.

Here’s the trim he used with the regulators and cooling system mounted on. Nold says that the only reason he used an LMAO trim rather than an OMGWTF was that he had already trimmed all his Wiis down to LMAO size. Weird flex, but OK.

This portable is pretty strong features wise. Here’s a list:

Single port charge and play

Bluetooth to play Wii games

Nintendo Switch joysticks and 3DS buttons for a comfortable layout

5 inch screen

3+ hours of battery life

Here’s a video of the final product:

Nold’s full worklog and completed thread can be found here. Nold plans to keep working on his Dreamcast portable, as well as start poking around at the PS2, so expect more greatness from Nold in the future!

It’s been two years since Aurelio built a portable. In 2016, Aurelio took 3rd place with the original Piizza portable, the first portable to feature his custom GC+ board. In the two years since then, GC+ has become a necessity for all Wii portables, but Aurelio has never been one to stick to the norm. By pushing the bounds of modern portablizing further than ever before, Aurelio snagged the first non-Gman victory in the 2018 contests.

Custom PCBs are one of the latest and greatest tools in portablizing at this time. In 2016, they were virtually nonexistent. 2017 saw them begin to become more and more common among veteran portablizers like Gman and JacksonS, but in the later half of 2017 more and more modders began to tap into this awesome source of potential features and cleaner internals. Aurelio, being Aurelio, utilized advanced custom boards in virtually every aspect of his portable.

Right off the bat, Aurelio replaced the legendary GC+ with a revamped GC+ 2.0, seen loosely assembled in the picture above. Aurelio rewrote the entire program in C, rather than Assembly like the original. This change allows for easier changes to the firmware, whether it be by Aurelio or someone else. Additionally, the new version allows for new features such as button remapping on a game by game basis, as well as improved stick scaling. The GC+ 2.0 also features pull-up resistors built into the chip itself, which drastically cuts down on the overall footprint of the GC+. As seen above, Aurelio mounted all the buttons, joystick connectors, and circuitry onto two PCBs, allowing for a wire-free controller solution to help keep the internals organized.

The portable also features crisp 480p video with the help of the Eyoyo 5 inch monitor. Aurelio went to great lengths to make the driver board as thin as possible.

Aurelio wired the screen directly to the driver board with dozens of pieces of magnet wire, thus shaving off a few millimeters by eliminating the FFC connector. For reference, the connector has a pitch of 0.5mm per line, so Aurelio getting this working first try is a testament to his soldering abilities.

On the other side of the board, Aurelio tested to determine which sections of the driver board could be removed and ended up powering the entire screen off of voltages from his custom regulators. Anything that was tall but necessary was relocated in order to make the driver board as slim as possible. The final board is clean, organized, and most importantly: thin.

The features don’t stop there! One of the drawbacks of almost all portables is the wide range of charging ports they generally use. Specialized smart chargers and DC power supplies have been the go-to for portablizers since the dawn of time, but unfortunately this usually means that there’s the extra hassle of having to carry around another charger that is only used to power a portable. Aurelio took a stab at changing this and succeeded in incorporating USB-C into his portable – the first person to do so. Aurelio’s portable is charged by the Nintendo Switch power supply, thus allowing his portable to piggyback off of a charger he will already have with him. The USB-C port can also be connected to a computer to access his internal flash drive, allowing him to flash new games and test software to the Piizza 2.0 without having to open up the portable and extract the drive.

You can’t have a top-of-the-line Wii portable without trimming a Wii! Aurelio’s trim features a custom NAND relocation board that allows him to relocate the NAND with the vias on the custom board lining up perfectly with the vias on the Wii, allowing a quick and relatively painless relocation. More importantly, relocating the NAND like this makes it very unlikely that a wire could pop loose and render the whole thing useless.

The final trim is tiny and still features four screw holes which allow the Wii to be held securely in place.

Aurelio’s method of cooling is piping hot. Or is it piping cool? All I know is that it uses a heat pipe to cut down on the overall area the cooling system needs and allows the hot air to go directly to the outtake of the portable where the warm air is blown out by a fan.

Here’s the final system. the fan is the black circle and the air is guided with the green tube that Aurelio designed and 3D printed specifically for this project. Overall, it’s an extremely elegant solution. More heat pipes and other similar cooling systems are likely going to become common in new portables.

The last main feature that Aurelio’s portable has is a slew of features in and of itself: PowerMii. PowerMii is an all-in-one board for charging batteries, regulating voltages, controlling sound, and several other awesome things that make his portable more akin to a modern device.

This is a picture of PowerMii next to an SD card. It is minuscule, especially when you look at the extensive list of functions this little guy does. Here’s a summary:

Efficient voltage regulation for all voltages the Wii requires, making it no longer necessary to relocate the LDO (1.8v regulator) on the Wii for trims that go beyond the basic OMGWTF trim.

Safe battery charging for any number of batteries. Also allows any DC power supply between nine and fifteen volts to be used to power the Piizza and charge the batteries simultaneously. Beyond this, PowerMii is able to read the exact capacity of the batteries, and can take this information and display on the screen of the portable with the help of one of Aurelio’s custom Wii programs: WiiHUD. This is a major step up from what most portables have, if they have a battery indicator at all. The board is also capable of notifying the user of deterioration in the batteries, as batteries do begin to wear out after many cycles. Between these two features, PowerMii can also tell how long it will be before the portable will run out of juice and how long it will take for the portable to be fully charged again. That’s more than my iPad can do…

The board is able to take a temperature reading from near the CPU and GPU where all the heat is and can identify when the fan should slow down or speed up in order to maintain a proper temperature that will keep the Wii from overheating. This means that portables no longer have to choose between borderline safe cooling systems or overkill ones – fans can simply take their cue from PowerMii and run at whatever speed is ideal for the situation. Should the portable become overheated anyways, PowerMii can identify this and safely shut itself down. The Wii loses it’s overheating protection after trimming, so this added feature adds another level of safety to a portable.

A built in digital audio amp that seamlessly switches between headphones and speakers. Volume is controlled through a combination of buttons on the GameCube controller, which eliminates the need for external volume control buttons.

This is PowerMii mostly wired up inside of his portable. If you weren’t excited for the board’s release to the public, well now you are!

Here’s a video Aurelio made showing off his portable and a lot of the features it contains. Be sure to give it a watch and leave a comment calling it GameCube!

That’s about all there is to say about the Piizza 1.5 right now, but Aurelio is still working on a variety of software to improve this portable and bring new features to other people’s projects. He is personally working on a software patch that will allow GameCube controllers to be used to emulate Wiimotes, with fully remappable buttons, functions, and other awesome features. He is continuing to work on WiiHUD software for both his individual amps and PowerMii. These improvements along with a bunch of extreme hardware mods will be coming together to create what could very well be the most legendary portable of all time – the Piizza 2.0.

The PS2 has been seeing a lot of love from Gman for the past couple years, driving his many Wiis to sadness by their seemingly second class treatment. With Gman no longer transforming the beat up, second hand consoles into glorious portables, did their existence have any meaning? All hope seemed lost when the PS2 Razor was released in its stunning clamshell glory (article coming soon), but then suddenly Gman pushed out another beautiful Wii portable. The case is based on Gman’s contest winning GS2 and has been revamped to fit a GameCube layout and the internals of a Wii portable. To put it clearly, the G-Wii is an elegant portable that retains the simplicity of portables past.

This portable boasts several features that makes it stand out among other portables. All of the controls on the front face are from an original GameCube controller, including the two joysticks; this feature has become increasingly uncommon in handhelds, as portablizers have moved to using 3DS and Joy-Con joysticks in order to conserve space in their portables. Additionally, as seen in the image above, Gman’s portable also features 480p video output, thanks to the assistance of Aurelio’s Wii VGA patches.

The top of the portable features 3D printed L, R, and Z buttons, alongside an easy to comprehend power switch, a USB port, start and Wiimote sync buttons, and most interestingly, a GameCube memory card port. One of the only (if not the only) trimmed Wii portables to have this particular feature, it allows the user to seamlessly use their old saves from a childhood GameCube without having to mess with various homebrew applications to transfer their saves to a USB drive.

The back of the portable is fairly simple, an elegant fan vent and countersunk screws to keep the portable’s polished look.

And of course, you can’t have a Gman portable without beautiful internals. There are no custom PCBs to speak of, other than one for controlling audio opposite the GC+ in the front half. The simplicity of the build is really awesome; it shows that even in a community where custom PCBs are becoming more and more common (even inside of first and second portables), elegant builds can still be done without specialized circuits. Gman recognized this, and made the decision to open source his CAD files, allowing others to build their own G-Wii. This portable is a very reasonable challenge for beginning portablizers, who can find the files here. There is plenty of space to work with, and the final product is a beautiful, stable portable (assuming it is done correctly).

Once again, another amazing job by Gman. Portablizing is a great hobby in that there is no perfect portable. As Gman continues to push the boundaries of portablizing, stay tuned to see what other masterpieces he cranks out in the near future.

After finding success in last year’s summer building contest, Jackson clearly followed the time tested motto of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Jackson kept his portable looking mostly the same, but an in depth look into the features in this portable reveal the drastic upgrade that it truly is.

Jackson certainly earned his 3rd place in the contest.

The bottom part of the portable holds a headphone jack and video controls.

The top part holds a lot. Here’s a list (from left to right):

3D printed triggers

A button to toggle between three different controller options. This portable contains the necessary circuitry for a GameCube controller, a sideways remote (with motion controls!), and a Wii classic controller. The three diffusers next to the button each have an LED behind them, and the LEDs are used to indicate which controller is currently in use.

Below the button is a single port that supports charge and play at the same time.

The USB port is used for any extra USB peripherals such as a breakout box or a keyboard.

The mini USB port is used to access the internal flash drive, which removes the need to take the flash drive out of the portable to add new files.

The HDMI port is used to output video to an external monitor.

A Bluetooth sync, reset, and power button for the system

A vent to allow hot air to escape the unit.

That’s a whole lot of features, and they were made possible by the various circuit boards that he designed himself.

This board contains the regulator circuitry, the charging circuitry, and his USB system.

This big board contains everything needed for video: both for the internal screen and the external HDMI out. It also contains the various ICs and components needed for a Wii classic controller and a stock GameCube controller. The array of pads on the top left are there to make soldering up a normal Wii remote easier.

The internal Wii remote is something very unique to this project. Jackson did this last year with the first Wii SP, but this year he went all out in finding the best way to cut down and rewire the Wiimote.

This is his trim next to a standard Wii remote. Pretty small, eh? By trimming it this small, he had to rewire the accelerometer and the EEPROM chip, but it functions just like a normal Wiimote would.

An internal Wii remote is super cool, but one of the most unique features of the Wii was how the Wii remotes interacted with the sensor bar. Jackson recognized that without this feature, he would be pretty limited in terms of which Wii games he could play. The solution? A simple little board, nicknamed “TouchMii”:

This board is used to convert the signals generated by a touchscreen into the pointer signals from a Wii remote, which allows you to touch the screen where you would click with a Wii remote!

The final internals ended up looking like this:

Everything is organized and in its place. Even the Wiimote wires look really nice, which is significant considering there were several dozen of them.

Jackson’s worklog can be seen here, so definitely check it out if you want more details about his PCBs, or more information about the build in general.

Unfortunately, this wraps up our series of articles about the 2017 building contest. But fear not! Everyone is gearing up for this year’s contest, so expect some more beautiful portables from Jackson and everyone else.

Madmorda initially closed up this beauty of a project last July, just days before the contest ended. However, after closing it up, she wasn’t totally satisfied with the end result. Everyone else hailed it as a beautiful revolution, but Madmorda was just kinda Sadmorda with the end result. And then her Wii motherboard went on the fritz and she was really MADmorda. After several months of revamping, repainting, and refinishing her portable, the Wii S Lite is finally complete and ready to display to the public.

Don’t like it? Well, there’s The Thousand Year Door; you can see yourself out.

This portable boasts a variety of nifty features for everyone to envy.

Clamshell design

5 inch composite screen

Breakout box which contains component video out and three GameCube controller ports

Micro USB charging via a portable battery bank built into the system

Internal GameCube controller via a GC+

WiiHUD audio amp (allows for volume information to appear onscreen as well as switch between headphone sound and speakers seamlessly)

IR LEDs for full Wiimote support

A gorgeous Zero Suit Samus paint job

Pretty hard to not be Gladmorda with a feature list like that, huh?

The breakout box in action!

Madmorda’s case was unique, in that she utilized both frankencasing and 3D printing in her design. The case started out as an Intec DS carrying case, like this one:

That’s pretty small. From there, she frankencased in ports and PS2 buttons for the triggers and start button.

After this, she moved onto the 3D printing. The part that holds the screen is 3D printed, as well as the plate that contains the fan vent and controls. The button and 3DS slider guides were taken out of 3DS shells, and then frankencased in as needed.

Her technique was hardly orthodox, but nobody can argue with the final results.

Here’s a YouTube video that shows off the completed build:

Madmorda is already looking to the future with new and original projects like a fully functional GameCube controller built into a key chain, new paint jobs, and other awesome projects. Be sure to hang around the forums to see what’s next!

It’s not every day you get to see something like this. A nearly flawless portable as someone’s first? Jefflongo is the man of the hour, with a beautiful portable that quickly went viral on the Internet thanks to his attention to detail and perseverance.

ShockSlayer is back at it again with another SSWiiT looking portable. Such great effort went into this design. With carefully chosen parts carefully inspected to create the epidemy for future portables to come. Careful consideration went into the art. Equipped with a one LED backlit modded PSOne screen, a DVD drive for all of the WiiFlow goodness, a custom glass blown case made by hand, and nine 18350 batteries each labeled as 10000 mAh for extra long battery life.

Human Portable Making Machine Gman keeps the production line going with his latest, a Nintendo Wii portable trimmed down small enough to fit, along with all the other necessary components, inside a Gameboy DMG case. How is such a thing possible? Is it just a Mirage? Perhaps just a PCI capture card inside an Atari Jaguar Shell? Has Gman obtained the schematics to the fabled Electromagnetic Shrinking Machine, last seen in the 1989 hit Honey I Shrunk the Kids? The Secrets Revealed, Exclusively on Bitbuilt.

After an impressive line of GameCube portables, and with the plans for the newest “OMGWTF” Wii trim having just been released on BitBuilt, JacksonS was ready to board the Wii Train. Drawing inspiration from Ashen’s GameCube Fusion Rev. 4 as well as the Wii U Gamepad, the goal was simple: to make a quality device that felt “very Wii”. A slick coat of white paint and official Nintendo buttons and LEDs helped him achieve this goal quite nicely.

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